


World's Worst Boss

by Panopticonslaught



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Season 5 Never Happens, Spoilers, Trans Character, Trans Elias Bouchard, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28635474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panopticonslaught/pseuds/Panopticonslaught
Summary: The Eye Never Opens, fizzling Elias's grand plans for triggering the apocalypse before they can blossom, leaving the Archivist with an uncomfortable new burden of power and a mouthful of questions. Elias has no "Plan B." The Archivist immediately rebounds from Scotland to grill his whole ass. Death would be more favorable, really.(An excuse for me to do a fic dive into Jonah Magnus because I have an obsession with extremely terrible men.)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have never asked for a beta in my life and I'm not about to start. Tags may be added later as they're needed. We'll call this a soft T rating? There will probably be swearing.
> 
> Preface that I headcanon Martin & Jon as trans men, but Jonah (Elias) is nonbinary. Still, every single person in the room from launch is transmasc.

For all that the two of them may Know whatever they please, it still surprised Jon when he stormed into the center focus of the Magnus Institute and found Elias calmly seated at his desk, hands folded together atop gleaming lacquered wood. That the semi-human Jonah Magnus (or perhaps not human at all, or entirely too human for comfort, at this rate), body-gloving in the skin of what used to be Elias Bouchard, hadn't promptly packed essentials and fled for the hills. He certainly had no lack of time to do so: the return drive from Scotland was a hurried one, with Martin in rare form the whole way, spitting poignant curses and driving angry in a way Jon never thought him capable. And with Jon’s head still pounding from being the focal point of a ritual, he had a hard time concentrating on just about anything.

The ritual had failed, but the mechanisms of it left him changed, and that was all he had the capacity to absorb. Everything else was blinding aches and pains; like his guts were stuffed full of needles, blood replaced with oil, eyes bulging from his sockets, brain-matter only just maintaining elasticity inside his skull. Not _so_ incapacitating, though, as to deter him from following through on immediately returning to the Institute to tear Jonah Magnus a new one.

Still, that he and Martin were alive was undoubtedly a wrench in the gears for Jonah, and surely he knew that they knew. And Jon knew that he knew that they knew. That sort of thing. He genuinely wasn’t sure what they would find - even Martin pointed out if his self-preservation instincts were intact, as they both suspected, Jonah likely would have uprooted the moment he realized the ritual failed. Both of them were full of bitterness and spite in the immediate aftermath, eager for somewhere to redirect their energy after a statement that was almost literally catastrophic. But all that aside, the only instinct he could follow at the time was to return to the Institute. It was as good a place to start as any. Maybe if Jonah wasn’t there, he figured they could tear through the Archives and try to find some hints as to where he would hide if he were in a panic. At the very least, they could count on the surety that Jonah wouldn’t feel so out of sorts that he would burn down the Institute.

Turned out, they didn’t have to do any tearing through. They showed up - Martin shaking with fury, Jon from the migraine screaming behind his eyes - and Jonah (Elias?) was just _there._

He _looked_ perfectly collected, on the surface: the same self-satisfied, well-tailored, haltingly polite and inordinately unnerving piece of upper management that hired them on in the first place. Although, his expression wasn’t quite as smug as Jon expected. The only visible indication that the current state of affairs wasn’t as stable as Jonah would like.

The first words out of Elias’s ( _Jonah’s_ ) mouth were meaningfully woven behind a dry swallow and an unblinking gaze that seemed only to take in Jon, discarding Martin entirely. A contradiction to the especially intentional disdain in his tone when he spoke one name, then the other. “Hello, Jon. _Martin._ ”

Martin didn’t even hesitate. Jon had to use both arms to hold him back, which was quite the sight. No-one would praise a fence of sticks for restraining a bull, but they might certainly acknowledge the bull for choosing not to breach the fence. There was none of his usual softness and passive reticence here. Martin had both eyes locked on the man sat at the desk behind Elias Bouchard’s placard. The faint roar of the ocean grew louder both for him and Jon as the normally cherubic, heavyset Blackwood had clearly prepared to turn every inch of his fist into a very specific kind of inconvenience for Jonah’s face. When he met resistance, it was clear the only reason he wasn’t marching on anyway was because he respected Jon.

“Jon,” Martin snapped, anger full to bursting on his tongue. The excess vitriol bled out, aimed purposefully in Jonah-Elias’s direction.

He tried to placate Martin and his overwhelming impulsive presence, squinting hard through another snap of spots in his eyes that threatened to shake him off his feet. “I just - need a moment.”

“Jon, if he’s going to be stupid enough to just _sit there,_ I am _going_ to punch him.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, hands pressed firmly to Martin’s front as he felt another physical surge, accompanied by a huff - almost a snort - waves crashing violently on a pebble shore. “Martin, _please?_ ” The question came out soft, and above all, _tired._ Frustrated? Of course. Infuriated? Absolutely. But among everything else, after being forced to narrate in words that weren’t his own and nearly splitting open the sky for whatever Jonah wanted to draw down, and a too-long car ride full of too much rage between them both, they now found themselves before the source of their ire and the only feeling Jon could hold to his chest without falling apart was _exhaustion._

Martin was displeased, efforts to press on fizzling out, apparent urge to throw down dulling to a smolder. “You _know_ he deserves _far worse_ than what I’m thinking of doing,” he pointed out.

“I do know,” agreed Jon, rubbing between his eyes. Some of Martin’s attention turned to interlocking their fingers and squeezing, smooth palm against hot skin where Perry had left her mark. Jon flexed his fingers in return. Some of the icepick sensations left his skull. “But I’d like it if we could - just - hold off, for now.” He clarified after a sigh, “I have questions.”

“Sure he can’t answer them when we’ve got him all tied up?”

Jon laughed, the sound hollow. “Oh, he’ll answer.” He looked at Elias, who looked right back, unmoving. Barely an eyebrow twitch. But Jon felt _something_ squirming behind those eyes, distinctly uncomfortable with the implications on the table. He pinned Jonah to the seat with his stare, dry air in Elias’s office crackling with the taste of something altogether inhuman. “Of your own free will, I assume?” He wondered. “Since it’s _so important_ to you?”

Jonah swallowed, pursing Elias’s mouth tight. Trying to keep the two of them straight was already puzzling enough. How was he going to address the figure at the desk? Technically, Elias had been gone a long time. An imposter was wearing his name, his face, his skin. But Jon had never met Jonah. He’d met Elias - someone pretending to be Elias.

“That would really depend on the questions you ask,” said the man.

Martin sneered at him. “Oh, like you’re in any position to say no!”

His hands lifted from the desk; a gesture meant to pacify. It wasn’t very effective. “I’m certain our Archivist has many things he wants to ask, but there are very specific avenues of thought where I _will_ hold my ground,” he explained. “Circumstances aside.”

A weary, bone-deep sigh from Jon. “What’s to stop me taking them from you?”

“Already forgotten about the employment contracts?” Wondered Elias. His tone was pointed; irritated. Intentionally leaving it to Jon to fill in the blanks.

Jon thought about it. When the answer occurred to him, he rubbed his whole hand down over his face and grumbled. “Of course.” He accused, “And I suppose you’ll be about as stubborn as Peter.”

Jonah squared his shoulders to emphasize his point. “Oh, moreso, I would say.”

“Do the contracts say anything about _hurting_ him, or just _killing_ him?” Asked Martin.

Elias acknowledged Martin with his personal attention for the first time with a condescending smile. “I would welcome you to try either one.”

Martin _growled._ “I think prison is a small price to pay for caving your face in,” he reflected aloud, “for very nearly _ending the world._ ”

“Prison, maybe. What about the slow and painful death of you and every other member of archival staff?”

“I dunno.” Martin challenged, as Jon put his face in his hands, “Burn them all up and let’s find out.”

“Hmm, like you were burning statements in my archives?”

“ _Really._ Bringing that up _now?_ After what you did?!”

“It’s a very sore spot for me,” said Elias. It was hard to parse the ratio of sarcasm to sincerity. From what Jon was hearing, the most reasonable answer was neither: he was just trying to get a rise out of Martin. Whether Martin cared or not, the petty remarks were definitely having their intended effect. Yet annoyed as he was, he remained unimpressed, rolling his eyes. “Sure. Always about you, then, is it?”

“You were committing arson against company policy, Martin. How did you expect I would respond to such a breach of trust?”

“ _BREACH_ OF -”

Even Jon squeezed out a bitter noise from the bottom of his throat at that, lifting an arm pre-emptively when it felt like Martin might charge again. Instead, he flailed, arms swinging up wildly before flapping with infuriated gestures at the man behind the desk.

“ _BREACH_ OF _TRUST??_ ”

Elias openly admonished him, lips curling into a slow smile. “Please, let’s use our inside voice.”

“Don’t you dare scold me! I will shout as much as I like!!”

“Martin, don’t.” Jon mumbled, eyebrows knotted together, eyes closed. “He’s being obtuse.”

“Yes, and all your caterwauling is making Jon’s migraine worse.” Jonah curled his fingers together under his chin while Martin sputtered; angry, but relenting somewhat with that particular point.

“How _are_ you holding up, Archivist?”

Jon’s eyes snapped open. He glared, responding with a flat tone and dry mouth. “Profoundly terrible, thank you.”

“Interesting.” Jonah tipped his head, regarding the Archivist with utter fascination. “I wonder which you feel more of right now? Still comfortably full of knowledge from the Eye? Skin too hot from the Desolation? A paranoid itch in those tiny little scars, perhaps.”

“All of them. None of them. Too much.”

“But still not enough.” His smile widened. He placed his chin in an open palm. Jon felt a dull rumble knocking on the walls of coherent thought and clenched his hands into fists, shaking, stuffing them in his pockets. He decided to avoid prolonged eye contact with Jonah after some seconds passed, finding that the concerted effort to do so left him with an uncomfortable all-over awareness. Like looking in a room of mirrors, finding a thousand different reflections staring back.

“You know a good deal about failed rituals, don’t you, _Jonah?_ ”

Elias _sighed._ “You do just come in swinging below the belt, don’t you?”

The Archivist replied with a shrug: “Were you expecting any different?”

A moment of reflection. Jonah-Elias drummed his fingers on the desk three times. “Not as much, I suspect, out of sorts as you are. You could simply call me Elias you know.”

Nosy bastard as always. Martin reacted with his entire body, piping out a _humph_ from his whole chest while Jon only made another tired sound.

“If it would be easier for you, that is.”

Jon rubbed at his temples in turn. When he responded, it was an exhaustive acknowledgment that left a bad taste in his mouth. The temptation to brush Elias’s request aside peaked in the moment, but he saw through that statement with far more ease than either of them liked. Regrettably, it was _one_ moral query he was unwilling to challenge. “You mean as you would prefer.”

“That, too. Yes.”

Martin made a disgusted noise and crossed his arms, which Elias barely acknowledged; though it _did_ flip his smile to a scowl. Martin remained visibly disappointed - evidently, with the powers that be in general - while Jon considered the options. After nursing another round of ringing in his ears, he looked up. It sounded almost like there was a crackle of soft static under his voice as he pulled himself out from a particular alley of Beholding, as it were.

“You’re not going to like this, but -”

“Oh, boy.”

“- Would you mind waiting outside?”

He was right. Martin _didn’t_ like it. “That is a terrible idea, and yes, I _do_ disagree.”

“I’ll be fine.” Jon promised. He lifted an arm in Elias’s direction. “He was part of the same ritual. In a way. Look at me, Martin.”

Martin kept his arms crossed, following Jon’s gesture with a withering look. “Just because _you’re_ all messed up - I mean, look at him! He’s sitting all prim! Acting _fine!_ ”

“I don’t _feel_ fine.”

Martin whipped over on a dime, upper lip curled. “I wasn’t asking _you,_ was I?”

“He has no benefit in lying right now. Just in...uh, exercising his right to remain silent, I suppose.” Jon _couldn’t believe_ he was defending Elias - but. Practically speaking, he wasn’t wrong.

“Correct. And -”

Elias barely got the second word out before Jon raised his voice, much to the dissent of his body aches and his migraine. “Which he would be smart to take advantage of right this moment, until we can have ourselves a private discussion.”

The silence was filled with the steady ticking of a small, antique clock on Elias’s desk which operated on a key crank. Jon heard three successive taps atop the desk. With nails this time!

“And yes, we _will_ continue to speak about you like you’re not here.” He added, “And you will sit there, smug bastard you are, and wait your bloody turn.”

More than ever before, Elias Bouchard now wished things had turned out different.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies in advance that Feral Martin has made his exit. Perhaps I shall draft a brief but nonetheless alternate route where Martin just 100% goes full ham on Elias's smug jerk face.
> 
> Uhhh... hmm. Surprisingly there's not much to warn about for this fic of mine. Jon's stalking habits from S2 are mentioned briefly. Elias is rightly accused of being a manipulative bastard. Also, the narration is somewhat unreliable between the both of them. Technically they're both not wrong when they call out certain things on each other.

It took some serious convincing on Jon’s part to get Martin out of the office, and for every minute that it went on, Elias had to sit and suffer the nauseating displays of care and affection that went with it. He watched with passing interest for the first couple of exchanges, Martin fretting over the Archivist’s well-being, getting answers in the form of gentle (and occasionally annoyed) reassurance that _Jonah Magnus_ was - more or less - temporarily defanged.

Anything after the initial sentences, however, had him rolling his eyes, posture slouched, fingers drumming thrice on his desk before he checked his watch. The open palm beneath his chin moved up so he was half-cradling his face in the arc of his thumb and index finger, which pressed up into his temple almost to the hairline. Elias inspected the handwritten notes on the paper calendar laying flat on his desk, picked up a favorite pen, and wrote in a few memos as an afterthought. A stabbing headache crawled from his frontal lobes all the way to the back of his neck.

There were many reasons why he wasn’t much a fan of current affairs, chief among them being treated as a passive presence when he was very much still accounted for. It came second only to the fact that there was an incredibly strong presence to the Beholding taking up space in his office, and it wasn’t his. Elias _only_ planned to keep that to himself because he _didn’t_ want to deal with Jon getting a big head over it. If it kept him alive a little longer, and kept Jon from pointing that newfound power in his direction, all the better.

It wouldn’t have been a problem if the ritual hadn’t failed, really. He went into it anticipating a certain transference of power; grooming the Archivist to be the focal point didn’t come without consequences. It had been very similar with the Watcher’s Crown, which came at a tremendous personal cost for a payoff Elias had since decided was too short-lived to be worth the expense. And opening the Eye, inviting every single fear onto the same plane to be watched and studied in an eternal loop, well. That was a _rather weighty_ ask. The consequences of which were now hastily thrust onto the Archivist, in messy stitches and imperfect grafts that were having difficulty adjusting to the decidedly still-too-human shape of his flesh.

The longer he thought about it, scratching out his appointments for the day and drafting a text message to his secretary ( _bizarre,_ for him, but she would have to deal with it), the more Elias realized that for all intents and purposes, he was sitting on a supernatural power-bomb of his own creation.

No use panicking about it. His stomach did a lurch under his finely-pressed vest, and he quashed it down deep where his heart couldn’t speak to his head. Realistically, he’d been in worse predicaments.

( _He hadn’t, not ever, but Jonah Magnus never let anyone have the satisfaction of seeing him sweat, and he wasn’t about to start._ )

Elias tuned back in just in time to hear his office door swinging open and shut, with one less body in the room. Martin was staying right outside, though. Typical. Soundproofing or no, he was assigning himself as the guard dog.

Jon released a breath he had apparently been holding for a while. Elias sent the text to clear his schedule for the day and not to ask questions, straightening in his seat. “All finished, then?”

Jonathan looked at him, standing surprisingly straight-backed for a man barely taller than his boss. His dark skin was covered in worm-scars and old cuts now, the usual richness of it sickened by a pallid quality, like he might go green and pass out at any moment. He looked like he’d taken a wrong turn through the nine circles of hell, but otherwise shouldered the heavy burden of his burgeoning skills remarkably. Elias maintained his stare in return, unblinking, though it rattled his bones on some level to do so. “You could mask your disgust a little better.”

“I will not,” he argued, clicking his pen so the point retracted out of sight.

The Archivist Watched, a small scowl twisting his mouth as he absently pressed a thumb into the center of his burnt palm. “...I’m sorry that the concept of genuine affection is so nauseating to you.”

Despite the word choice, Jon sounded very much like he wasn’t sorry at all. If Elias had to guess (and he didn’t, naturally), that was more of a brag: _what an awful lot you are, incapable of feeling love._

“Not the concept itself. Just the two of you carrying on. Could have done without it entirely.”

Jon folded his arms over his chest and shot Elias a cross expression that had him pressing his shoulders into his chair a bit. “You know, if you insist on behaving a mess, I could just invite him back in.”

From beyond the door, they both heard Martin’s muffled cry: “Say the word! I’ll deck him!”

Elias was all too aware how his confidence visibly withered. He would hardly claim being afraid of Martin, even on a bad day - even _after_ he got more comfortable with the Lonely - it was just that right now he was loud, and volatile, and entirely too much of a nuisance. A shockingly energetic vessel for his entity. A thorn in his side.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he concluded aloud.

“No?” Jon wondered. “I’m surprised. I thought you enjoyed Lonely men.”

Elias clenched his pen inside his fist and breathed through his nose, lips thinning to a taut line. His reply was quiet and bitter: “Uncalled for.”

Jon arched one eyebrow. There was a pause before he responded; like he expected something more, or he was looking for something. It made Elias’s skin crawl despite his best efforts. “Tit for tat, old man.”

Elias sighed, flipping his pen around in his hand, running his fingers along the gold embellishments. “You know, Archivist, this is shamefully petty, even for you.”

“Considering the situation, I’d say I’m allowed full permission to be as petty as I like.”

“On a certain level, I am forced to agree,” he conceded. “But I didn’t permit you to go rifling through my personal affairs.”

“ _Please,_ it hardly required effort on my part. Evidently Peter has a fantastically loose tongue, and Martin is a habitual gossip.”

That was, somehow, even worse than the alternative. He considered the concept of his staff - no, of _Martin, specifically_ \- whispering about his sordid affairs, and Elias seriously thought about whether it would be too much to just turn round and have some personal revenge for fun. For a second time.

“Though since you mention it,” the Archivist continued, “It’s a bit predictable, you with all your nigh-omniscience, hating being looked in on. Like you did with my own affairs? With Martin’s? Melanie’s? Basira’s and Daisy’s?”

Elias sneered his response, unamused. “Funny.”

“I’m not laughing,” Jon shot back. He took a few steps toward the desk. Elias folded his hands over his pen and pressed his arms a little closer, feeling his bubble starting to pop. The air in the room didn’t belong to him anymore, but he wouldn’t allow himself to choke. “You’ve been spying on every single staff member in this Institute with impunity since you hired them. You actively plotted to groom me for your own designs. You dragged me into your personal projects, picked out people who could conveniently be bribed or hardly missed to work in the archives -”

He interjected, fingers coming up from the desk, or tried to. “In - _in defense of that_ -”

“ _No_ -”

“- We’ve been over this already -”

“ _Let me finish._ ”

“You _chose_ to go deeper, Archivist. If it had turned out any differently at any point I would have gone to another -”

Jon put his hands down on the desk and leaned forward. Elias kicked up his feet on the sturdy ornate box serving as a footrest under his desk, suddenly very glad for the fact his chair had wheels and full range of motion on the backrest. The expensive leather creaked as he felt the effect of being metaphorically blown back by a glare. He gnashed his teeth behind closed lips and actively willed his expression to remain neutral, blunt manicured nails digging into the armrests.

He got the very acute hint that the only reason Jon wasn’t shouting was due to dealing with the lion’s share of the failed ritual’s nastier side effects. Still, he spoke with a hiss to his voice and tight syllables that Elias wasn’t entirely accustomed to from one Jonathan Sims.

“It would be very unwise for you to try your usual silver-tongued nonsense on me right now, Elias,” he warned. “I read the very statement that _you_ wrote. I very nearly got through the incantation before Martin interrupted. And before _that,_ you were kind enough to boast your entire life’s work! I _had to_ listen to it, I had to recite _your words,_ from _my mouth!”_

Elias swallowed dry, willing his heart to slow. He spoke up, tone as steady as he could keep it. “I actually did do far less than you’re accusing.”

Jon’s upper lip curled angrily. “What did I _just_ say?”

“You might note I never claimed to be entirely blameless.”

“Oh _sure._ ‘Not all my fault, you know, you were just such a tempting target, the Web just _handed you_ to me, how could I _resist?_ ’”

Elias rolled his eyes and sighed, burdened as he was by the ham-fisted and completely incorrect analogy. “Do you really not know how to take any responsibility for your own decisions?”

Both of Jon’s eyebrows shot up. “ _I don’t know,_ Elias. Do _you?_ ”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t. Enlighten me.”

Jonathan only ever had to ask. (This was more of a command, really. At least it wasn’t a compulsion.) “I never _made you_ pursue stalking Tim halfway across the city, did I.”

Jon stopped. Elias could see some of the wind flying right out of his sails, but - of course - he wouldn’t be Jonathan if he weren’t also frustratingly stubborn. “That’s... that was different.”

“Was it?” Wondered Elias. “Your overactive imagination got the better of you. You filled in all those blanks yourself. Threaded up your own red string on your corkboard, as it were.”

“You told me Gertrude was murdered -”

“I presented you with the facts as they were available to you at the time.”

“Not _all_ of the facts,” Jon snapped.

Elias breathed deep and quick, releasing a sharp huff. “ _Fine._ No. _Obviously_ I didn’t tell you _everything,_ for reasons we are now both aware. But I didn’t plant the paranoia against Tim in your head. I didn’t make you record your every insipid thought on those supplementals.”

Jon replied with a volume that indicated he was probably just a few words short of adding an expletive. He slapped one hand down on Elias’s desk, rattling some of the decorations from the force. “ _I thought my life was in danger!_ ”

Elias sneered back at him, leaning back in his chair still. A heavy silence throttled them both for a disquieting length before he relented, teeth tight together. “I can see you’re very intent on pinning every little thing on me. I _suppose_ that’s _fair._ You _have_ been through the wringer lately.”

Jon pulled away - to Elias’s relief - with a roll of his eyes and a disgusted groan. “ _Ugh,_ don’t you _dare_ pretend like you’re bothered.”

“I am bothered,” he replied. “ _Was_ bothered. I was there for the intervention. That wasn’t entirely false. You weren’t of any use spiraling off into private anxieties.”

Jonathan had been looking away, but the mention of _private anxieties_ had him immediately whirling back to Elias with a glare. “- Right. _Right._ Bothered in the sense that I wasn’t being your perfect little puppet. _Naturally._ ”

Elias inhaled for four seconds, hazel eyes flashing to liquid gold. Jon caught it as Elias held his breath for seven seconds, brown eyes flickering to green and back again in response. The pressure in the room became overbearing. His employer exhaled through his nose for eight seconds, pulling himself in at his desk and leaning back more. Visually, it was a relaxed posture: hands folded over his stomach, elbows on the armrests, feet kicked up on the half-person-sized box under his desk. Physically, Elias held tension in every muscle group he owned, and he didn’t dare blink until his eyes threatened to water.

“...Clearly,” he replied, a measured caution in his words, “I’ve misspoken.”

“ _Oh have you._ ”

“Look.” He leveled, almost at a slow drawl, “Archivist. It’s not a stretch to say you’re exhausted. And I’m still quite winded from the affair, myself. Neither of us is at peak condition.”

Jon _snorted,_ glowering at him.

“ _Regardless,_ ” Elias continued, “I suspect your reason for showing up here wasn’t entirely so you could scold me for my wicked deeds.”

“Maybe not, but I could go on if I like.”

Elias grumbled his dissent. “Ugh, your complaints have been thoroughly accounted for. For God’s sake. You _do_ love to go on.”

“Says the man who scripted an entire monologue as a statement for me to read.”

“Jonathan, you are in _no_ position to accuse me of being theatrical,” he snipped. “Not that I’ll deny it - I’ve been told before I can make quite the scene. That aside -” at this, Elias allowed himself to smile, just a _little_ smug. “- We aren’t precisely dissimilar, you and I, in certain ways.”

Jon recoiled in a way he hadn’t tried since Jude Perry. He reflexively squeezed his own hand as a side-effect, the choked noise in his throat conveying only pure revulsion.

Elias gestured lightly to him with one hand, still smirking. “You see?”

“ _Ugh!!”_ Jon cried, lost for words. “I can’t believe - you _actually_ \- UGH!!”

He _almost_ gave in to the temptation to laugh. 

“You -” Jon spluttered, shaking his head like it might rattle a few phrases loose, with little success. Evidently, that was the most shocking thing he’d heard all day. “I’m - you - you, you know what? I’m not even going to entertain that.”

Elias wore a wide, shameless grin. “Why? Because I’m right?”

Jon snapped, insulted: “No, because it’s patently absurd!!”

“You know,” he continued as some of his confidence slowly returned, bleeding back into him as naturally as he breathed air, “You really should address that nasty habit of cherry-picking you have.”

He felt another sharp rush of power from Jon that rattled the walls of the office, but Elias held firm. “ _Fuck off._ This isn’t _about_ me.”

“Isn’t it?” Elias arched one eyebrow. “It’s about what I did to you. And to your colleagues. But mostly what I did to you.”

Jonathan crossed his arms again, making a frustrated noise as he paced away from the desk. Elias watched him like a cat might watch a bird in a cage. Jon took a few steps left, then a few steps right. He fiddled with his long waves of hair, twisting some gray threads around his fingers as he worked to pull it back up in a fresh half-bun at the back. In the process, he made a home for himself on the couch Elias sometimes slept on when he worked late nights. Elias was only mildly annoyed by the absent-minded audacity of that.

“So.” When the ticking of his desk clock began to sound too loud, he tried to redirect through all of his Archivist’s huffing and puffing. “Do you intend to waste the rest of your evening complaining about what a monster I am, or will you actually cut down to the heart of the matter?” Elias checked his watch with a passive sigh, then looked at Jon again. “The hour is late. I was actually planning on heading out tonight.”

“ _You?_ Going _out?”_ Jon admonished him in disbelief, “That is the biggest lie I’ve heard all day.”

Elias pursed his lips. “...I _do_ sometimes go out and about, Archivist. For drinks, for new clothes, for trinkets. Like a normal person. I’m not some unsociable shut-in. That would be _your_ department.”

“Screw you,” he growled. “At least I’m still _human._ ”

More assumptions on pet theories it was, then. “I’m human, too.”

Jon looked up. Elias felt soft static between his ears and froze, discomforted. “You’re lying,” Jon determined.

“And _you’re_ being choosy again.” He accused. “But if you insist on being a pill, then I suppose I’m not _entirely_ human anymore. But I do rather enjoy being alive. You’ve said yourself I have no reason to lie.”

“You could still lie by omission.”

Elias, despite his best efforts at self-control, threw his hands up as he fixed Jon with an irritated glare. “What’s the point of asking me questions if you’re just going to twist my answers to fit your narrative?”

Jon straightened against the back of the couch, eyes flashing again. “I’m not -”

Elias turned in his chair, grumbling, running one hand through dark and slightly-graying hair. “If you’re only after revenge, just get it over with. Mind you, I won’t go without a fight, but I do not have the patience for your usual hysterics.”

“Oh, my _God._ ” Jon groaned, “I’m _not_ going to kill you. In fairness, yes, I would _love_ to, however, we’ve established that would go very poorly for everyone involved.” He added with a leer, “And I am not in hysterics.”

“Then if not murder, I am all but begging you to make up your mind. As I’ve said, I have plans.”

Elias watched Jon cross his arms, then his legs, focusing all too much on him again in a way that made every cell in Elias’s body react with bitterness. “Bodies to steal,” Jon said casually, “Lives to uproot?”

Elias’s eyebrows went up, but not by any amount of surprise. He didn’t even bother deflecting - it really was what he would have tried to do, in a pinch, if it came down to it. “Yes, actually.”

He watched as Jon’s jaw dropped open. He forced it shut after some seconds, bewildered. “...Wow. Didn’t even contest it.”

“And what will you do?” Challenged Elias. “Report me?”

To the police department? The one that was full of Hunters, that Elias was _definitely_ paying off with good money out of his own back pocket? And even if that _didn’t_ fall apart instantaneously, what would he say? _Hi, I’d like to report my boss, he’s a centuries-old individual who is responsible for several murders, at the very least by aiding and abetting, although a few of them he’s killed himself, so he could steal their bodies and replace their eyes._ Sure. _That_ wouldn’t get swept under the rug with a Section 36. _That_ wouldn’t make him sound even more insane. So many random people he’d met on the road _already_ thought he’d fully lost his mind, and the Institute’s reputation alone surely wouldn’t help the matter.

Jon’s mouth pulled into an angry frown the longer he considered about it. Elias concluded, almost as smug as usual, “I thought not.”

He saw as Jonathan’s frustration slowly mounted again, leaving him anxiously scratching over a handful of worm-scars on the inside of one forearm. His eyes lit up after a moment. “Ah! I could tell Trevor, I bet.”

 _That_ \- That made Elias _laugh._ “That old loon?! _Sure._ Doesn’t he positively despise you now?”

Jon puffed up, like he was so proud of himself. It was amazing, how fantastically bad this idea was. “I could convince him. He wouldn’t turn down a good tip.”

He was seconds away from balking. “My God.” Elias replied, all but open-mouthed in dismay, “You realize how you sound? This isn’t a plan. This is desperate circling.” Something dawned on him as he spoke, and left him flabbergasted. “Christ alive, I don’t know how you made it through the tunnels.”

Technically, by Jon’s recollection, he almost didn’t - but he certainly wasn’t about to bring attention to that part. “Considering you just told me you’d leave immediately and start scrambling for a new face, if you could, I wouldn’t start throwing any stones. Glass houses and all.”

Elias made an irritated sound, tapping his fingers on his armrest three times before crossing his arms. Jon couldn’t help but to fixate on it, for just a split second. He could hear Elias doing breathing exercises again, also not for the first time, which was a bit fascinating. It told Jon that Elias was _nervous._ Possibly because of his presence? _Definitely_ his presence. Well, that was convenient to know, at the very least.

It took Jonathan a moment or two to get himself back on track, involving a few different detours down certain trains of thought, which Elias had to suffer through while the Archivist just _stared_ at him. This was a crime. It was only fun when _he_ did it.

Petty thought process? Probably. Did he care? Absolutely not.

“Why do you do it?”

 _Finally._ Frustratingly broad, but at least it was a _question._ Good Lord. Elias _sighed,_ rubbing between his eyes. “Why do I do _what,_ Archivist.”

“The…” Jon paused, trailing off, pressing his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “Well, _everything,_ really.”

Elias furrowed his brow, rubbing his hands over his face. “I am asking you, with the last shred of patience I have, to _please_ narrow that down.”

Jon huffed, leaning on the arm of the couch, chin in one hand. He shrugged dramatically after a time. “Fine. Ahh…” he rolled his eyes, “...Millbank. The Watcher’s Crown. Why do _that?_ ”

“Hmm.” Elias frowned in reply, “That’s a bit far back.”

“Oh, don’t you start.”

“ _Start?_ I’m not complaining, I’m just _surprised._ You’re the one who took an entire age to pick a specific question.”

“You drafted an apocalypse ritual.” Jon shook a finger at him, “You don’t get to fuss.”

Elias’s eyebrows went up. “About _anything?_ That’s hardly fair.”

Fed up, Jonathan shot him another look. “Answer the question, Elias. Don’t make me compel you.”

At that, Elias tensed from head to toe again. “If you compel me in any way, I won’t answer. I’m warning you right now.”

“Fine,” Jon challenged, “Then don’t make me! Simple enough, yes?”

Elias tapped his fingers three times, leather thumping under the touch. God forgive him, Jon became distracted. Because he was _curious._ “You keep doing that.”

Elias, teeth and nerves on edge, snapped angrily in return. “Doing _what?”_

“This.”

Jon demonstrated with his right hand, drumming three fingers, three times. Index, middle, and ring. Elias consciously jumped his right hand up and away from the armrest and reached for his pen with a sneer, seeking something to keep his hands busy. He’d started fiddling with the cap of a fountain pen a couple of times when it clicked for the Archivist sitting on his couch.

“That’s not something Elias does, is it.”

Elias didn’t answer.

Jon paused, squinting in his scrutiny. “Interesting.”

Perhaps to Jon’s credit, he didn’t precisely _intend_ to start digging. But all intents aside, Elias _felt_ it, and was immediately beside himself. He squeezed around his pen, one fingerpad threatening to get pricked with the tip. The static in the office jumped up sharply, until Jon’s hair stood on end, some of it puffing up at the back when he already had such a problem with the humidity. He pulled back, blinking rapidly.

“I told you _not_ to do that,” Elias snapped.

“Did -” Jonathan looked perplexed. “- Did you just _shut me out?”_

“Yes, goddammit, and I’ll do it again!” Elias was the one pointing and shaking his finger this time. “If you want to ask your questions, you ask them, and I _may_ or _may not_ answer. Now do you want me to tell you about Millbank or not?”


End file.
